The present invention relates to apparatus for manipulating discrete commodities which form rows of successive and preferably identically oriented commodities. More particularly, the invention relates to improvements in apparatus for singularizing discrete commodities which form a row and wherein the singularizing operation involves moving successive foremost commodities of the row away from the remaining commodity or commodities. Examples of such commodities are so-called chargers or trays which are used for temporary storage of stacked plain or filter cigarettes, filter rod sections and/or other rod-shaped articles which constitute or form part of smokers' products.
It is well known to introduce rod-shaped articles of the tobacco processing industry into chargers or trays (hereinafter called trays) which are used for temporary storage of confined articles as well as for transport of the articles to a processing station. For example, if the stored articles are plain or filter cigarettes, they can be transported to and discharged into the magazine of a packing machine.
Machines which introduce rod-shaped articles (hereinafter referred to as cigarettes with the understanding, however, that the apparatus of the present invention can be used with equal advantage for the manipulation of trays which contain rod-shaped articles of many other kinds, especially plain or filter cigarillos, cigars or cheroots as well as filter rod sections of unit length or multiple unit length) into trays normally gather filled trays into rows and cooperate with a device, (normally a lifting device) which receives successive filled trays of the row and transports them to a processing station, such as the aforementioned magazine of a packing machine. Analogously, empty trays are or can be delivered to or stored in the form of rows at a tray filling station, and the foremost empty tray must be delivered to the filling station whenever the filling of the preceding tray is completed. Separation of successive foremost empty or filled trays from the remainder of a row of neighboring empty or filled trays must be effected with a high degree of reliability and accuracy in order to ensure that the next following station will receive empty or filled trays without any delay, i.e., that the output of the tray filling or tray evacuating machine will not suffer as a result of a delay or inaccurate delivery of successive filled or empty trays.